Cat Cake and Turning 7

I have a vivid memory of baby-sitting my niece when she was eight or nine months old back in 2011. For whatever reason (most likely separation anxiety), she could not handle being near Tom. The very sight of him caused her to burst into hysterical tears, so it was a very long afternoon. Tom played with our nephew in one room, and I hung out with our niece in another. If he stuck his head into the room to see how we were doing, she would immediately start to cry.

So when I see the exuberant 7-year old in front of me, it's hard to imagine that all this time has passed by so very quickly. 

This year my niece requested a cat cake for her birthday party, and I am VERY pleased with the final product. I dug the design up from a post from the lovely ladies at CocoCakeLand.

From what I can tell, it was well received at her party!

Only scraps left.

Happy Birthday, sweet niece!  

San Diego

San Diego is about a two hour drive away from Palm Springs. After spending four days in Palm Springs, we hopped in our rental car, and drove to the coast. 

San Diego was a big change in comparison to Palm Springs. It wasn't as warm, and we stayed in a hotel-- which felt very cramped after the luxurious stay in our sprawling Air BnB bungalow. One of the benefits of the hotel was a beautiful view at sunset.

There were plenty of places to see and explore, and we started with the San Diego Zoo!

The San Diego Zoo is HUGE. The infrastructure is way beyond any other zoo that I'd visited before. The enclosures were elaborate, and there is a gondola that takes you from one end of the park to the other. 

There were lots of animals that Lacey had seen before, but never so up close. She got a front row seat for a pair of male tigers, and a gorilla came right up to the window and sat beside her. 

She also got to see an elephant for the first time!

The following day we went to La Jolla Cove. It was a weekend, and the park was riddled with families like ourselves, walking around with small kids. There was a man in the park blow bubbles-- giant ones and little ones, with various equipment. And there were hordes of kids running around trying to chase the bubbles, and Lacey joined right in. She was full of glee running around after everyone!

There were also some very stinky sea lions at La Jolla Cove. Stinky and noisy.

We took advantage of our last morning in San Diego, and did a long beach walk. Lacey likes to poke at things in the sand, and watch sea gulls. And we found a big playpark for her to play in. Swings are always a hit!

After that, we loaded ourselves back into the car, and drove back to Palm Springs so we could catch our flight home. 

Overall, a great trip. And it really helped that it was freezing cold and snowing at home-- so it was the perfect time for a getaway!

This marks the last trip that Lacey can make as a "lap infant". Next time we travel, she'll be big enough to have her own seat! 

Palm Springs 2.0

Back in 2016 when Lacey was 7 months old, we did our second trip with a baby, and went to Palm Springs. Neither Tom or I had been there before, and we weren't really sure what to expect. It turned out that we REALLY liked it, so we decided we would go back again this year!

The trip was a little different this time, because we travelled with Tom's friends, Simon and Leanne, and their two girls, Chloe and Hannah. We rented and shared a BEAUTIFUL Air BnB house in Palm Springs with them, and gloried in the warm weather, backyard pool, hot tub, fire pit, putting green and horseshoe pitch. It was nice having adult friends around to share the trip with. And it was nice that Chloe and Lacey could play together (although we're still not sure if they enjoyed each other's company or not-- there was a lot of arguing).

This time around, Lacey is napping one time a day (as opposed to three times a day on our first visit), so we had a lot more flexibility to get out of the house and sightsee. We went back to the Living Desert Zoo, and as you can imagine, Lacey had a lot more appreciation for the animals on her second visit. She enjoyed feeding the giraffe, and was amazed by it's long blue tongue! 

She also rode her first carousel. I wasn't sure what she thought of it, because she wasn't vocal at all during the ride. But when it was over, she requested, "More up, down and around please."

Another highlight for Lacey was her first lollipop-- yum!

On another morning, we took Lacey on her first hike to Andreas Canyon on the Agua Caliente Indian Reserve. The hike was very short, about a 1 mile (1.6km) loop-- but Lacey insisted on walking about 2/3 of the trail. We saw dozens and dozens of lizards, and she told all the other hikers that we saw about the lizards. People kept coming up behind us on the trailing, and exclaiming over how they had seen Lacey's tiny footprints in the dust of the trail. Lacey did really well, and it seemed like she really liked hiking!

The mornings tended to be our out-of-the-house adventures, and in the afternoon, all of us would pile into the pool. 

I had always planned to sign Lacey up for swimming lessons. But while I was on leave, the idea of dressing myself and Lacey for a 30 minute trip into the pool had seemed incredibly daunting, so she's still a swimming lessonless kid. That doesn't stop her from loving to splash around in the pool though!

We didn't figure out how to get the hot tub heated until our last day, but Lacey was definitely a fan of the hot tub over the pool!

I imagine we'll find ourselves back in this neighbourhood again in the future.  It was too perfect to pass up!